That silly internet

I’ve been feeling pretty nostalgic lately. I’m pretty sure that it has to do with the introduction of 105.7 Crush FM into the lives of folks in the Capital Region… to an extent. A friend of mine passed this video along to me, which

WHAT IS THIS?

is a clip of the Today show back in 1994. Bryant Gumble and Katie Couric were discussing the Internet (are we even supposed to be capitalizing that anymore? I knew we did that on research papers in high school) when an email address popped up on the screen for whatever story they were discussing prior. The funny thing was that no one knew what “@” meant. The “a with the little circle around it” could have been “about” or “at” or several other things and the address was “I think that’s how some people communicate” (I’m paraphrasing). That was only 1994? In 1994, I was ten years old (fourth grade?). The biggest event of that year was the blizzard that we got in western PA. We missed a week of school due to the foot of snow and ice and, as a result, had to stay in school until the middle of June. Since we normally started summer break by the first weekend in June, this was a huge deal to us. And we certainly did not email, text, or tweet our feelings about having to stay in school into the middle of June, instead of having pool parties. No… our choices of communication back then were 1. face to face, 2. the phone… you know, the one hammered into the wall that we now call “the landline”, or 3. Passing notes.

The Fly Morning Rush was talking about the lost art of passing notes this morning, after they saw the now hilarious clip of Bryant and Katie wondering what the heck the Internet is. Now that kids as young as 8 have their own cell phones, do they pass notes anymore? In elementary school well into high school, that was the primary mode of communication during school hours? “Do you want to go to the dance with me? Check ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ or ‘maybe.’” “Hey gurl, wuz up? (only we used the little arrow instead).” “This class is soooo boring.” Sometimes we would get in trouble for this and would be forced to read the notes aloud. To avoid this, they would be folded into cute little origami shapes so that they were well hidden. Apparently, kids don’t know how to do this anymore…since they don’t pass notes. Shocking. What do they get in trouble for now? Texting in class? And will the teachers read said texts allowed to the class? They should… it’s only fair.

My generation also thought it was cool to have beepers. My dad wouldn’t let me get one because “only drug dealers have beepers.” Thanks, Dad. You’d send messages to each other like “143” (I Love You) or 07734 (reads “hello” upside down). However, I carried change in my pocket to use the pay phone instead. Anyone remember those?

So, the big question here is this… What in the world did we do before that silly little Internet thing?

8 Responses

There used to be these things…they had all kinds of info in them, there were huge buildings that housed them, and you needed a special card to take some of the info home….I think they were called “books”…..we used to hitch up the wagon and go to town and go to the “library”..ah, the good old days.

Well, in our house we didn’t have electricity or running water either. So, that meant tv and bathing were out. And when we wanted to go to Monroeville Mall we had to hitch up afore mentioned wagon (thanks, Tony) and hook Boots and Millie up to it to take us. Being cats made it just a tad more difficult than if we had a horse. But the homeowners association wouldn’t allow horses in the neighborhood. We did talk person to person but usually not face to face as that might lead to me leaning your over the staircase backwards. I guess my answer would be that we ate more food!

haha, this reminded me of the time i showed my ex bf’s 7 year old daughter how to fold a piece of notebook paper into a little football. i was amazed she didn’t yet know how. she was amazed i did! i guess texting is the way to pass notes now… great blog post!

Thanks kriskaten… when I was a summer camp counselor in college, I taught the 10-12 year olds how to do this because they didn’t know how. But of course, they were way better on the computer than I was!